<p> What causes variation in the turnout of an individual from election to election? Most individual level predictors of turnout can account for the propensity of an individual to vote but fail to account for changes in turnout behavior. Broad aggregate factors can account for variation in turnout trends from election to election but fail to account for changes in turnout at the individual level. In this dissertation I argue that civic duty can capture the variation that typical predictors of voter turnout cannot. Civic duty can account for variation in the turnout of high and low propensity voters, as well as distinguish why some groups turnout in one election and other groups turnout in another. The capacity of civic duty to capture such variation comes from the sensitivity of civic duty to the saliency of identities and the competing group concerns they generate. Civic duty motivates an individual to vote due to a sense of obligation that is generated by multiple group identities, with these identities either complementing each other and enhancing a sense of civic duty or conflicting with each other and diminishing such a sense. I apply and test such theory using the case of the 2017 British general election. With this case I find that civic duty can uniquely capture a sense of European identity, as well as the variation in salience of such identity that can account for the highly unexpected turnout of Millennials in 2017.</p><p>

<p> Practices that cultivate healthy relationships with self and others are always needed and valuable, especially during this modern time of ever-increasing fragmentation through technology. Cultivating empathy individually and communally promotes increased levels of connection among individuals and can create greater harmony among communities. Centering prayer offers an intervention that respects Christian practices of contemplation and can address care needs. This study investigated the impact of centering prayer on levels of empathy. This study was conducted through a single group pilot study using a mixed methods design. Given that centering prayer is primarily a Christian practice of contemplation, the population for this study was a Christian church community. Both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered to create a greater understanding of possible applications for centering prayer. The initial findings from this study support centering prayer as a positive intervention to help build psychological and emotional tools of empathy that can be added to church community offerings or Christian organizations. </p><p>

<p> Stalking has been a pervasive behavioral pattern that disrupts the lives of many. Previous researchers have examined factors that can predict the occurrence of stalking in victim-perpetrator relationships while simultaneously examining stalking type. Domestic violence and psychopathology have been possible predictors to stalking. A vignette survey examines the public&rsquo;s perception of stalking within former lover, acquaintance, and stranger relationship. A 3x3 factorial MANOVA examined the effects of relationship and type of stalking to danger, violence, and safety. Results demonstrate an interaction effect between former intimate, stalking type of following and perceptions of violence and threat to safety. These findings suggest that prevention programs need to educate communities on domestic violence in intimate relationships and stalking. </p><p>

<p> There are currently an estimated 93 million children with disabilities in the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report each year that 1 in every 700 babies is born with Down syndrome. Yet in spite of the enormity of numbers, they remain one of the most marginalized groups in society. Discrimination, negative attitudes, inadequate healthcare, and segregated education systems effectively bar differently abled children from realizing their full potential. This study uses a single-subject case study of one spectacular sport event involving one child with Down syndrome. It is framed by Vygotsky&rsquo;s "zone of proximal development" (ZPD) theory, which suggests that social interaction, adult guidance, and peer collaboration, can support development that exceeds what can be attained alone. A thematic analysis was used to measure differences in recurring themes among three separate sources of data including (1) online YouTube video comments, (2) written correspondence, and (3) focus group interviews. Four emerging themes including servant leadership (31%), happiness (27%) inclusion (20%), and community (17%), were most frequently identified. However, significant differences in frequencies of thematic responses were noted between the three sources of data. Findings support past research that has found comparative differences between participants and observers in how one relates to people and scenarios. Observers are likely to remove themselves from &ldquo;understanding&rdquo; an experience, and may be less likely to feel the full spectrum of human emotion and character. This unintentional yet impactful event points to the power and mystery of how a person&rsquo;s influence can extend much further than their immediate community, but to external observers from the wider world. Findings also confirm the role of Servant Leadership, Community, and Inclusion as critical for reshaping attitudes and assuring equity across policies and programs so that children who are differently abled can reach their full potential. </p><p>

<p> This qualitative study addresses the lived experience of participants in a specific somatic psychotherapy practice, relational somatic psychotherapy (RSP). The RSP approach is a biologically based, interpersonal exploration of consciousness and self-awareness through authentic relationship (Hilton, 2007). Following an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology, this study analyzes interviews focused on how participants experienced the somatically based psychodynamic healing modality of RSP through group relational dynamics. This study is grounded in depth psychology in that participants in RSP work with the unknown, repressed energy of the body in order to make behavioral and emotional energetic patterns conscious. It is grounded in somatic psychology in that the focus of exploration is in present moment experiences of the body. Thus, the assumption of this study is that the integration of both traditions creates an embodied approach to psyche. Themes that emerged from this study suggest that awareness is transformed through embodied relational experiences. These themes helped articulate that embodied relational experiences in psychodynamic group process supported individuals in integrating the dissociated parts of themselves into consciousness, suggesting that embodiment practices experienced in the context of authentic relationship help to integrate psyche and soma. Such experiences seem to integrate previous unconscious, implicit memory systems into healing and empowering embodied self-awareness. </p><p>

Seligman's theory that phobias are biologically prepared associations is challenged on theoretical and empirical grounds. It is argued that a concept of experiential preparedness may be more useful for approaching the problem of selectivity in phobias. The experimental part of the thesis pursues this argument by investigating the magnitude and habituation of electrodermal orienting responses (ORs) to words denoting ontogenetically fear-relevant (phobic) or neutral stimuli. In experiment 1 no differences between the ORs to moderately feared and neutral stimuli were found. In experiment 2 subjects were presented with stimuli as in experiment 1 and were threatened by electric shock; the phobic stimuli then elicited larger and more slowly habituating ORs than the neutral stimuli. In the following three experiments, subjects were presented with stimuli they reported as not feared but of which the majority of their peers reported substantial fears. In experiment 3 there was no manipulation of the state of the subject, in experiment 4 subjects were under threat of shock, and in experiment 5 they anticipated pleasant music. Only in experiment 4 did subjects show larger and more slowly habituating ORs to phobic than neutral stimuli. In the last two experiments, pleasant stimuli were administered while subjects anticipated shock or music. On the whole, no differences in ORs to pleasant and neutral stimuli were found under either of the two conditions. The results suggest that the OR is not simply linked to the detection of stimulus change or significance and depends on the state of the subject, with stimuli known to be associated with fear taking precedence in processing when subjects anticipate threat. As phobias are assumed to be learned responses and the OR has important implications for learning it is concluded that phobic responses towards stimuli feared in the culture may be formed when people perceive the future as threatening and unpredictable.

The thesis is in 2 parts. Part 1 contains a description of the relationships which a sample of young male probationers had at home, at work, within their peer-group and with their girlfriends or wives. The material conditions in which they lived are summarised, and brief data were collected concerning their mental and physical health. Attention is drawn to the fact that difficulties in one sector tended to be statistically associated with difficulties in another; moreover the presence of environmental stresses indicated a greater likelihood of reconviction within 12 months of the probation order being made. After the order had been in existence for 2 months, it was found that the quality of the probation officer's casework relationship was statistically associated with the client's parental relations, father-son and mother-son relationships, the probationer's contemporary associations, the level of support he enjoyed at work, and his personality characteristics. Furthermore a moderate or bad casework relationship was linked with a higher reconviction-rate. Thus the probation officers were best able to make a good relationship with those who appeared to need least help. An attempt to devise a Stress Score was only moderately successful, and Part 2 describes a method of assessing the environment which was intended to improve on it. It isolates 3 areas of the environment: support at home, work/school and crime contamination - which, it is suggested, together make up a social system likely to partially determine the probationer's criminal behaviour. The instrument was validated on a second sample (including juveniles); and statistical analyses were carried out to relate the environmental assessment to personality factors and to 3 different criteria of success on probation. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the methodological and theoretical issues arising out of the research instrument.

The research was intended to explore people's attitudes to the social transaction of giving and receiving help in situations of practical and material need, to assess their willingness to give and to accept help in defined situations, and to record the circumstances which they considered to be important in deciding whether to give and to accept help. The survey was conducted in a village in Norwegian Lapland where interesting developments in this field were said to be taking place. A class of students at the local Youth School was invited to respond in writing to a series of need situations presented as a tape-recorded projection test. The same test, illustrated with a film-strip, was used as the basis of intensive tape-recorded interviews with selected individual adult villagers. The results of the tests indicated that the subjects tested were not such rare givers nor such cheerful receivers as popular tradition held the Lapps to be. A great variety of circumstances influenced them in their decisions. Sympathy, and a strong sense of obligation to help in some situations, were the main reasons for giving. Decisions to accept or reject help were considerably influenced by the urgency of the need, by the benefits which would result from accepting, and "by the wish and obligation to be independent and self-sufficient. There were wide individual variations in willingness to give and accept help, and in the influence of the circumstances of the test situations on the decisions made. Instead of the expected inverse correlation between giving and accepting, various combinations of willingness to give and to accept were observed which reflected the different personalities and attitudes. It was found that none of the current theories on giving and receiving was sufficient to account for all the attitudes revealed, though each was relevant upon occasion.

This thesis is concerned with the issue of continuities and discontinuities between adverse family experiences in childhood, and the psychosocial functioning of young adult women, with particular reference to parenting behaviour. The thesis seeks to determine whether intergenerational links between adverse childhoods and adult functioning arise through the direct effects of adversity on personality development or through its impact on subsequent life chances and circumstances. The processes promoting discontinuities are also examined. These issues are explored in two studies, using reception of children into care as in index of family problems and adversity. In the first study a consecutive sample of 48 women with children multiply admitted to Residential Care by one London borough and a contrast group of 47 from the same area were interviewed concerning their early experiences, subsequent life histories and current functioning to determine retrospectively whether their current problems were associated with similar difficulties in their own childhoods, or whether they arose predominantly in response to current family and environmental stresses. The second study concerned 93 women admitted to long stay Children's Homes in early childhood and a contrast group of 31 brought up in inner London but who had never been in care. Both groups were interviewed concerning their early experiences, their life histories and their current psychosocial functioning, with a particular focus on parenting skills. This study was concerned to establish the extent of intergenerational continuities in psychosocial problems, and the factors involved in continuities and discontinuities. The results from the studies show that although the great majority of families with currently marked parenting problems are drawn from those who had markedly adverse childhoods, such problems occur in a minority of those who suffered such experiences. Where continuities occur the links are predominantly) indirect, involving complex chains of circumstances and adverse environments. These links are partly independently determined by earlier environments experienced by the young women and partly selected through their impact on individual functioning at particular times. The data show marked beneficial effects of positive changes in experience in adulthood, especially where marital relationships are good.

<p> Knowledge sharing has been shown in studies to positively impact team performance. Understanding methods that could lead to deliberate knowledge-sharing could be beneficial for teams. Reflexivity is the degree to which team members communicate the team&rsquo;s objectives, strategies, and limitations in order to mitigate unexpected situations. Reflexivity was examined with a motivational theory of goal orientation to test how team motivation influenced reflexivity&rsquo;s impact on knowledge sharing and team performance. Furthermore, diversity in goal orientation was studied to gauge how diverse motives of team members influenced team performance. Results indicated no support for reflexivity improving knowledge sharing; however, the experiment found performance-oriented teams performed faster on tasks and motivational diversity decreased knowledge sharing. These results give a better understanding towards how reflexivity and team motivation impacts knowledge sharing and team performance. </p><p>